News

Although we are only a small charity, with limited funds, the Trustees are pleased to record that they have been able to make donations totalling about £85,000 to a range of organisations since it was set up some six years ago in memory of Dave Summers.

The Trust seeks to support charities and projects that would have had a resonance with Dave Summers and during 2018 we made donations to the following organisations:

The Pushkin Prizes – Dave Summers had a great interest in the Russian language and its literature and hence our support of the Pushkin Prizes. It is an excellent Scottish charity offering a unique opportunity for prizewinners from schools throughout Scotland and St Petersburg in Russia (the one-time home of Alexander Pushkin) to attend a five-day creative writing course at the Moniack Mhor Writers' Centre near Inverness.

The Borders Book Festival – A donation from the Trust was made for a second year running to enable the organisers of the annual festival at Melrose to provide newer less established authors a platform to promote their work.

Horsecross Arts – The Trust has made a donation to support the cost of Perth Theatre’s commissioning of a Scots version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Neil Gunn Trust – The Neil Gunn Trust was set up a number of years ago to celebrate the famous Scottish writer Neil Gunn who came from Caithness. Every two years it holds a writing competition, the aim being to follow in the footsteps of Neil Gunn by encouraging writers of all ages and abilities. Given Dave Summers’ lifelong interest in poetry we have made a donation for the first prize to be awarded in the poetry section of the 2018/19 competition.

Craigmillar Literacy Trust – We have continued to support this charity which aims to inspire people in Craigmillar Edinburgh to enjoy the pleasures and benefits of reading, writing and other activities. Our donation is directed at helping them to sustain and develop their Creative and Learning Together project.

Traverse Theatre Edinburgh – The Traverse Theatre runs an annual education project which challenges senior pupils from across Edinburgh to become playwrights, creating brand new scripts to be premiered on the Traverse stage, and to engage in theatre skills workshops. We made a donation to their 2018 project which is called Class Act Connect.